Got It
by K Hanna Korossy
Summary: Dean's been deciphering Sam all his life.


**Got It**  
K Hanna Korossy

"Fir-tra."

Dean looked up and nodded. "Yeah, that's a firetruck, Sammy. What does the firetruck say?"

"Wooo!"

He grinned at the toddler, who was leaning as far forward in his car seat as he was able to watch the road with big eyes. "Yup. How about that one, what's that one, Sammy?" Dean pointed.

"Gabbatra!"

"Garbage truck, good!" Dean smiled with pride first at his little brother, then into his dad's eyes watching them in the mirror. Even Daddy smiled a little. Sammy was learning fast.

"Dee, hamba."

"What's that, Dean?" Daddy asked from the front.

Dean glanced at what Sammy was waving at and giggled. "Hamburger. Sammy's hungry, Daddy."

"Hamba, hamba!"

"Huh." Daddy turned the car into the McDonald's parking lot. "Well, I'm sure glad we have you here to translate, Deano."

"Bababa. Ju!" Sammy declared happily with a pounding of small fists.

And Dean just smiled and knowingly nodded.

00000

"'n."

His head tipped sideways from the comic book he was reading, attentive to the croak from the sofa but his eyes still on the colorful pages. "Yeah, Sammy."

"'ty."

"Okay." He sighed and scrambled to his feet and into the kitchen. The pitcher of apple juice was only a third full, and Dean dug a can of concentrate out of the freezer to defrost before pouring a glass of juice. He walked it carefully back into the living room and handed it to the invalid. "Be careful."

Sammy tried to sit up to drink, but fever had burned away most of the seven-year-old's strength. Dean quickly steadied the glass with one hand and hitched Sammy up higher with the other, frowning at the hazy smile he got.

"Wait a minute, let me check your fever again first."

"'ld," Sam whined pathetically.

"You just feel cold 'cause you've got a fever, brat. Just a second and you can have the juice." He stuck the thermometer into Sammy's mouth, counted off a minute while avoiding those wet, pleading eyes, then popped it out and frowned. "Okay, Sammy, drink up." He helped the kid hold and tilt the glass.

Halfway through, when Dean took it back, Sam frowned, then coughed. "'n!" His throat sounded as wrecked as his voice.

"Just a sec." Dean wrestled with the pill bottle a moment before opening it and counting out two capsules. "Open up." When Sammy obeyed, looking like a baby bird asking for a meal, Dean dropped the pills in, then grabbed the glass again. "All right, now you can finish it."

Sam did, then sank wearily back into the couch, snuggling deep under the covers. Dean pulled them up to his chin, making sure there were no gaps for the cool air to slither in through.

"nks, 'n."

He smiled at the kid. "No problem."

00000

"Sam."

Sam stopped at his Dad's call, but he didn't turn, didn't even look back, his spine a stiff line of rebellion.

"You have any homework, son?"

"No." Conversation apparently over, Sam continued down the hall toward the room he shared with Dean.

"He has two study halls today, Dad," Dean offered around a mouthful of Lucky Charms. "He usually gets his homework done there."

"Hmm." His dad turned the newspaper page and read on.

A door slammed in the back of the house, then Sam reappeared, backpack shed and his old patched jeans on instead of his newer school slacks. It was the compromise he'd reached with Dean when he'd wanted new clothes: for school and social events only.

John didn't even look up. "Where are you going, dude?"

"Out."

Dean glanced from brother to father. "He's going down to the center."

The local community center was a popular place for the teens to hang out, playing basketball and ping-pong, taking care of a vegetable garden, or, as Sam usually did, just hanging out and reading or playing on the computer. It was also one of the few places their dad allowed the young teen to go with friends and without Dean.

"Who are you going with, Sam?" their dad asked, one eyebrow raised over the edge of the paper.

"Matt," came the surly answer.

John looked at Dean.

"Matt's one of his friends from school. He's cool, Dad—I checked him out."

"All right. Just be home by six for dinner," John called after his youngest's retreating back.

A grunt sounded just before the front door slammed shut.

"He will," Dean interpreted confidently.

His dad _hmmed_ again into the paper.

Dean rolled his eyes and went back to his cereal.

00000

A pillow hit the side of his head at the worst possible moment, right when the busty girl on-screen bent over. Dean growled and batted the missile out of the way, then glared up at Sam. "What!"

Sam actually flinched back into the recliner, uncommonly meek.

Dean immediately kicked himself and wiped the irritation from his face. "Sorry, it's just—" He gestured helplessly at the screen, then dropped his hand. "What do you need, Sammy?"

The kid—guy, Dean kept reminding himself, almost eighteen—still looked a mess, eye swollen and purpled, bruises disappearing up his right sleeve where he'd slammed into the floor, and puffy, discolored toes extending from the ace wrap around his foot and ankle. But the rope-shaped bruise around his neck was the most spectacular injury, and Dean knew it was as painful as it looked. It was still hard for Sam to breathe normally, let alone talk, and it had dampened him more than just in voice. When Dean figured out what it was about his kid brother that seemed to scream "Strangle Me"…

Sam held up his book, eyes shifting uncomfortably from Dean.

Yeah, that would probably be because of the teasing Dean had been laying on him for wanting to read all the time instead of watch TV, especially classic TV like _Bikini Beach Babes IV_. Dean made sure there was no impatience or condescension in his tone now, though, as he asked, "You finished it? You want another one?" He climbed to his feet.

Sam hesitated, pointed to their room door, then his t-shirt.

"Okay, in the room, blue book. Where, in your backpack?"

Sam grabbed an imaginary knob and pulled.

"The desk, right. That it? You want your backpack, too? Geek boy like you probably has homework to do." But he said it with affection.

Sam's pale cheeks flushed with a little color as he flipped his brother off.

"Yeah, Marcel," Dean said with a grin, heading for the room on his mission. "I love you, too."

00000

"This is a crap case, Dean."

He raised an eyebrow at out-of-the-blue outburst from the research section of their room. "What?"

Sam tossed—actually launched—his journal across the room, where it pinged off the door and fell open on the floor. Dean's other eyebrow went up. "We've got three sliced-up bodies but no signs of the supernatural: no witnesses, no strange circumstances, no odd injuries or EMF or histories. It's probably just some…Charles Manson-wannabe on a rampage. I mean, what are we even doing here, Dean?"

"Investigating a possibility," Dean said patiently. "Caleb thought—"

"And that's another thing—since when are we taking orders from Caleb? Isn't Dad marching us around enough?" The laptop wobbled on the cheap table as Sam shot to his feet, but thankfully didn't also go airborne.

"We're not taking orders from Caleb, we're just checking out something that twigged his radar, dude," Dean countered. "Since when do we not look into a bunch of mutilated bodies?"

"Since we've been looking for Dad for three months and haven't gotten anywhere, Dean!" Sam was vibrating with tension. "What happened to that case—_our _case?"

"We're still looking," Dean said calmly, also rising to his feet. "It's not like we've got any leads we're not following, Sam. If Dad doesn't want us to find him—"

Sam snorted. "Right. 'Cause keeping us in the dark is so much safer." He cursed bitterly under his breath, then turned away, breathing hard and pulling at his jaw.

If only the problem was just their missing dad. But Dean knew what this was really about, and it wasn't the case, or Caleb, or even Dad. He tread softly over to Sam and laid a hand between two sharp shoulder blades. The kid wasn't eating enough, and a good night's sleep was still rare. Dean was kinda surprised he wasn't coming apart at the seams more often. "We'll find it, Sam. The thing that killed Jessica, the thing that killed Mom. We're gonna find it, and we're gonna kill it. I promise."

Sam's hands dropped to his sides, and he shuddered under Dean's palm, his hair hiding his face.

"It's gonna be okay," Dean soothed. "I promise. And the older brother's always right, right?"

Sam snuffled a wet laugh, back hitching. When he finally spoke, his voice was choked. "But it's not gonna bring her back."

"No," Dean agreed quietly. "It's not."

They stayed that way a long time, until Sam stopped shaking and turned back to Dean, wiping his face abashedly.

Dean didn't say a word, just settled at the table next to him as they went over the case once again.

00000

He was too late.

Why Cas couldn't have beamed Dean into the room itself, he didn't know. But that bitch Ruby had taken one look at him, smirked, and swung the doors shut in his face.

Trapping Dean outside the room where Sam was about to make the worst mistake of his life.

Dean pounded on the door, yelling, hoping it sounded to his brother like backup and not threat. In the end, it didn't matter. When the doors finally opened, Lilith was dead, and Sam looked…

Sam looked like his little brother again. Not Sam the Savior, not Sam the Mighty Hunter, not even Big Brother Sam. He was Sammy again—no _just _in that—frightened and confused and looking at Dean like he was counting on his brother to have the answers.

Dean had one, anyway. He charged the demon skank with knife upraised, and this time Sam helped Dean kill Ruby instead of trying to stop him.

It was too late. Lilith's blood was opening something; even Dean could tell that. But still, it was only Dean that Sam saw at that moment, only him Sam was focused on.

"I'm sorry."

Dean's total attention was on his brother, too. Tears in Sam's eyes, voice breaking. Apologizing not just for the broken seal, but for the broken faith: the fight, the walking out, the addiction and the mistrust and the last year of secrets and lies. Everything in two words.

It wasn't enough, not even close, but it was all Sam had, the truest words he'd spoken in probably a year. Dean knew it as sure as he knew his brother.

And called him "Sammy" again, knowing his brother would understand.

**The End**


End file.
